Must we wait for a traffic study to slow traffic and put crosswalks at the corner of Main and W. 1st?

Look at the asphalt. There's something missing, eh?

Looking clockwise ...

Yeah, it's that whole walkability thing ... so much easier to talk about than actually buy a damned can of paint -- or heaven forbid, erect four-way stop signs to slow the 18-wheelers.

On April 16th, I asked a question about this same vicinity.

New Albany's streets: Screwed by design. Why?

The YMCA is on the south side of Main Street, with parking on the building's west side. Feast BBQ and The Exchange (sorry, but the Hour/Tower/Shower of Power doesn't count) are on the north side of Main. Soon, across W. 1st Street on the north side of Main, there'll be the Seeds and Greens Natural Market and Deli, and of course the antique store already operates on the corner.

A half-block to the north are the municipal parking lots where the farmers market probably should be, if we were in the habit of thinking and acting in the interest of multiple usage.

The are multiple traffic lanes at W. 1st and Main in the approach to the stop light at State, and people crossing the street from the western parking areas more often than ever before. All that's missing is a crosswalk, as can be seen in the photo. I'd just bounded across after being cursed by a driver who'd be forced to wait an entire 10 seconds for my passage.

At Tuesday's Board of Public Works meeting, City Engineer Larry Summers and Street Commissioner Mickey Thompson (the latter also a board of works member) made interesting remarks in the context of the board's mirthful vote to lower the speed limit to 25 mph on the irreparably botched East Main Street Improvement, Deforestation and Semi Trailer Non-Diversion Project.

“Since we’re putting in crosswalks in more places, we’d like it to be a better place for pedestrians and a safer place overall,” Summers said.

“The city does have the authority to [change the speed limit] without a traffic study,” Thompson said.

Okay, let's see. The YMCA, The Exchange, an Antique Mall and now Seeds and Greens. Three street corners of activity, tailor-made for walking.

Now, if we don't need a traffic study to implement a half-ass, doomed-to-non-enforcement speed-limit solution to a $2 million project political fluffery boondoggle that contradicts every walkability tenet about to be handed to us by a rock star studier of traffic (Jeff Speck), then do we really need one to paint crosswalks where W. 1st meets Main?

Or are we just too "us" for that?